Stuck In Transition
by HellzCrusader
Summary: Next Life story. People die, time moves on. But sometimes something gets stuck on the way back.


4-23-09

Kingdom Hearts- NEXT LIFE FIC

Community service sucked. That was the only thing that Roxas could honestly think of as he followed his older brother down the hall of the group home he was to "volunteer" at for the duration of his sentence. Getting caught for deface school property had not been an overall part of the plan when he and Demyx had decided to go and get revenge at Mr. Luxord for suspending them for playing cards in his math class. As if the old bastard didn't do it himself, he played solitaire more often than actually teaching anyway!

"This must be Roxas then?" The blond girl at the desk smiled gently at him as she spoke with Cloud about what he was going to be doing while there. She was very pretty the teen noted.

"Yep. He's gonna be here every Saturday for the next four months from ten in the morning to five in the afternoon, so you'd best get some good work out of him." Cloud told the girl, smirking slightly at his younger brother who was clearly disgruntled at being forced to come here. Prison would have been better appreciated he thought.

"Well then, he's all signed in, so Roxas if you'd like to come with me, I'll introduce you to your assignment." She stood up and Roxas spotted the name tag pinned to her shirt that read _Namine. _Namine walked around the desk and took him by the hand, pulling him off down one of the side halls.

"I'll be back to pick you up at five." Cloud said with a wide grin and a cheerful wave even as his little brother stuck his tongue out in irritation at him.

"So what am I gonna be doing here anyway?" Roxas said as Namine led him passed closed doors, each with some sort of name plaque on it. _Larry, Joan, Kimmy, Mark, Lea, Alex…_ He fervently hoped that it didn't include cleaning toilets.

"You're going to be helping take care of one of our patients, Alex." Namine explained, "his last caretaker just got fired for misconduct and stealing so he's been on his own for a few weeks now. He's a nice guy so you should get along perfectly well." They stopped at a door with **Recreation Room **painted over the doorframe. Namine pushed the door open and pushed him inside.

The room was large and filled with windows, letting sunlight stream through and give the place an overall happy feeling. People ranging in age from young children to older teenagers were sitting around large tables playing with puzzles, books and other odd bits and pieces. Namine guided him to a table with a single occupant next to the window. "Alex, you've got a visitor." She gently placed a hand on the shoulder of the person sitting at the table, causing the person to flinch slightly at the touch. "Would you like to show him some of your pictures?"

She pushed Roxas into a chair next to the red head. "Just sit and draw with him for a while. He'll probably ignore you. I'll come back around lunch time." And with that she was gone, abandoning him to his fate, with only a room full of nutcases for company. Roxas sighed inwardly but pulled a pen and sheet of paper toward himself and started doodling. He drew stick figures of random people doing random things. Art had never been his best subject and his sketches left much to be desired. Every once in a while he would glance over at his "assignment" who was studiously ignoring him. Long bright red hair was pulled back into a braid though most of it has managed to escape and fluffed up around his head like a scarlet mane. Green eyes were narrowed as he scribbled away with a blue crayon, one arm covering the paper so it was impossible to see exactly what he was doing.

"Alex huh? What did they get you for huh? Disturbing the peace with that hair color of yours?" Roxas knew the joke was lame and probably in poor taste but he was still fuming over being forced to come here.

"What's you're birthday?" Alex asked without looking at him.

Roxas blinked. "Umm, March 26, 1989. Why?

"3 2 6 1 9 8 9, 3 2 6 1 9 8 9… Born on a Sunday." Alex mumbled, still refusing to look at him. "Sunday Sunday Sunday…"

"Woah. How did you do that?"Roxas asked, pulling out his cellphone and flipping through the calendar. Damn, the space case was right! He was born on a Sunday.

"No idea." A man's voice said from behind him, causing Roxas to jump about a foot in the air. "He just does it."

Clutching his chest, the blond teenager turned and felt his eyes widen in shock. Standing not two feet away was somebody he'd never though he'd run into in a place like this. "Reno? Reno Sinclaire what are you doing here?" Reno Sinclaire was one of the most legendary trouble makers at Oblivion Private Academy, not to mention probably the wealthiest. His family practically owned Twilight Town.

Reno shrugged in an almost bored way, pulling out a chair next to the other red head and sitting down. "What are you doing here yo? Alex never gets any visitors."

"Community service. I painted graffiti all over Mr. Luxord's classroom." Roxas explained, flipping his picture over and starting to draw on the other side.

"It's a bitch yo. But it ain't so bad coming down here. Don't mess with the TV in here though, Larxene goes nuts."

"Larxene?"

"Blonde chick on the sofa. Messing around with the remote." Roxas leaned around to look at the person Reno had indicated and his eyes widened. Larxene had a murderous look in her green eyes as she attempted to rip apart the television remote with her teeth. No messing with the TV channels. Check.

"Thanks for the tip." Roxas said, snapping his attention around as Larxene glared at him.

"Mmm." Reno folded his paper a few time before setting it down in front of Alex. A paper crane. "So, you got service for trashing a classroom? What'cha think of it so far?"

"Its okay I guess." Roxas replied with a shrug. "Quiet and a lot better than I was expecting honestly." He heared Reno snort with repressed laughter at his offhand remark. "What are _you_ doing here? Get caught breaking into lockers?"

"Nope. Just hanging out yo." Reno said, taking another sheet of paper and starting to fold again. He glanced over at Alex, and the space case leaned further over his drawing, hiding it from view. "Hey come on man, you always let me look at your pictures yo. What's wrong?"

Alex shook his head violently at the other redhead and simply scribbled faster. Reno sighed and ran a hand through his ponytail. "Well if that's how you want to do it," he snagged the corner of a sheet of paper that was underneath the one Alex had been drawing out and slid it carefully out from under the other teenager's arm. Smoothing it out carefully, Reno whistled faintly, before turning it around to show Roxas. "Looks like he knew you were coming kid." Reno turned the page around and showed the picture to the blonde.

It was him. Wearing black clothes he'd never seen before and hold what looked like a pair of weird swords but the blond hair and face were completely unmistakable. "How the hell… He's never even looked at me! How could he draw that?"

"No idea yo." Reno chuckled. "It's just one of those things that he does. He sets Marly's garden on fire sometimes, no idea why or where he gets stuff to do, but it happens all the same."

"He's pretty weird sin't he?" Roxas said, still staring at Alex he wasn't drawing as frantically now.

"Maybe, but he's my big brother yo, so maybe I'm just used to it."


End file.
